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TRACK

Tracking is a most useful skill for many kinds of people. If you wish to go deer hunting, or perhaps find that wounded enemy who ran for his life - tracking makes it all a lot easier. A master tracker can in a very short amount of time hunt down a wounded opponent, before he has the chance to heal.

Good eyesight and a brilliant mind are quite important when learning this.

The track skill enables you to follow the tracks of people and animals and to determine their location at a distance.

To use this skill, use either the track command or the where command.

The command track, issued by itself, will examine the tracks in your location and (after a delay) tell you who and what has passed by. A particular set of tracks will be more or less visible depending on what made it, how long ago, what the weather is, and the terrain. Tracks will also fade faster if it is raining or snowing.

If you are unlucky, you will see fewer tracks - you might see more if you track again. A tracker can discern various qualities of the tracks he or she is pursuing and classify them according to a descending scale: apparent, clear, plain, vague and faint. Also, bleeding prey tends to leave tracks that are easier to find and follow.

Issuing the command track <target> looks for the most recent tracks of the specific person/thing you are looking for. Furthermore, if you follow the tracks, by moving in the same direction, or with the pursue command, you will automatically keep on tracking your target until you find it, or lose the trail, or issue the track command again. To stop following the trail, issue the track command without arguments.

Typing where <target> also looks for tracks of target in the room you are currently in, but you will not keep looking for tracks as you move around. See help where for more details.

Some creatures, such as fish, birds, and spirits, will not leave tracks.

In addition to the ability to follow the tracks of other creatures, people who are skilled at tracking may be better able to find their way through terrain which would confuse a less skilled person. This will not be the case if the light is bad, however.

Being a more skilled tracker will not only make it possible for you to find well-covered tracks, but you will also track faster. Be aware that there is a limit to how fast you can actually track somebody though.

Examples:

  > track
  > track warg
  > where robber